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Monday, September 21, 2015

'Climate refugee.' Yes they are coming our way.

Every day we are seeing more and more people, flowing into the EU, mainly Germany. The sad sight of exhausted mothers and young children has torn at the heart strings of many people. Thousands of young men have also poured across the borders of Eastern Europe, looking for 'safety and a better life. There are those who claim that Europe is inviting a 'time-bomb' to enter the nation states that make up this continent. There are others who point out that the rich Islamic nations of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States in particular, that have not opened their borders. That is not to say that they have not given huge amounts of money. Where this will end, if ever, is anyone's guess, but history has seen the mass movement of people before, be it from a colonial act, or the result of wars.
There is another genre of refugee and there is a discussion re the action of New Zealand, refusing a 'Climate Change,' refugee to stay in the country. He has NZ born children and support is gathering for him to be allowed to stay in NZ.A petition has been launched and meetings held to put pressure on the relevant minister of the Crown to let him stay. Time is running out, for him and for the nation he comes from. The low lying nations in the Pacific are 'going under,' in a climactic manner. They are hardly above sea-level and any rise is making their nations perilous places to live. Water and crops are threatened and if the process accelerates, as many scientists claim, then we are going to see another mass movement of people from the affected areas. We have to face the probability that Island nations, around the world, those that have little high ground, are going to cease to exist. Other countries will have their shape change considerably as the low-lying land submits to the encroaching sea. NZ needs to look to its Pacific neighbours. It is these people who we need to accommodate, along with other nations in the region. I have much sympathy for the people in Syria, Northern Africa and other worn-torn countries in the area, but it is to the nations who share the huge ocean that NZ sits so comfortably in, that we need to help first. It is also a question of numbers. We cannot accommodate millions or even hundreds of thousands from the Northern Hemisphere, but we can make a real difference in our own region. Let the father from Kiribati STAY!